"But we love the private schools even more!" shouts Zed

Lol JB is trolling with the title of this thread, I reckon.

But I don’t think the graph really takes everything into consideration.
The government funds heaps of money to open, build and run a public school. A private school has that mostly paid for by the parents, so it costs the government and the taxpayers less per student to have private schools.

The government then looks at the need for an extra say 500 places in schools for students and thinks of the cheapest way to get those. So they could build another building plus pay more teachers over a very long period of time etc for public school places, or they can just chuck less money at some private schools on the proviso that they increase their places by 500. It costs the government and the taxpayers less and meets the demand they need. And overall, the quality of the education can arguably be better for more students and they increase the supply and lower the costs to make it more affordable for more parents to send their kids to private schools.

FD10 said :

miz said :

I see private schools like private health insurance. There is a decent service for everyone out there already, funded by the govt. It people feel that is not sufficient, they can ‘opt out’ and pay for another service.

Great, does that mean that those who send their children to public school should pay an extra tax, just like those who choose not to take out private health insurance?

The government should not discriminate between students. What they should do is ‘sponsor’ every student to $X amount of money, whether they are public or private schooled. If someone chooses to subsidise this with their own money (i.e. enroll their children in a private school), that’s their decision. Some will, some won’t. But every student should be equal!

+1

I am a fan of public education and that’s where my child goes currently. But I completely do NOT get some people’s insistence on perpetuating this eternal them against us mentality when it comes to public/private ed. I don’t get why this is necessary.

Though I would like the government to have more of a say in the running of private schools in return for their funding. Not sure what the rules are now, but I would definitely like to see them being tougher on preventing discrimination in relation to enrollments. I think it is not on for private schools to reserve themselves the right to decide who can and can’t attend their school. If they would get the same funding, that would be a fair expectation. I can think of a few other things like that, but you get my drift. If they want to use taxpayers’ money to provide the basic education delivery, the government should have more of a say in how they spend that money. If they then want to use the school fees to build tennis courts or a crystal temple, that is their business…

As FD10 says, every student SHOULD be equal. But they’re not. Not when it comes to the rights of a student in a private school.

Why SHOULD independent schools expect the same, identical level of funding as government schools, but at the same time be legally able to exclude kids without giving them, or their parents, ANY rights whatsoever when it comes to challenging or appealing an obviously unfair or biased decision?

As Tetranitrate comments above, the Catholic and Islamic systems DO truly make themselves accessible to all in the community, but there are other non-Government, non-Systemic schools in Canberra who aren’t.

Fairness and equality should be integral when it comes to the treatment of the kids we place in their care not just tokenistic at best.

Yes, Zed and the Liberals might be looking at giving more money to private schools, but they do appear to be balancing that by expanding the remit of the Human Rights Commission to allow for an independent dispute resolution process on issues that can’t be resolved between the student and the school.

IMO, that’s a win for both students AND common sense.

http://www.canberraliberals.org.au/LATEST-NEWS/STEVE-DOSZPOT-MLA/LIBS-TO-INTRODUCE-INDEPENDENT-EDUCATION-COMMISSIONER.asp

And it’s more than the ACT Labor Party appear to be willing to do.

miz said :

I see private schools like private health insurance. There is a decent service for everyone out there already, funded by the govt. It people feel that is not sufficient, they can ‘opt out’ and pay for another service.

Great, does that mean that those who send their children to public school should pay an extra tax, just like those who choose not to take out private health insurance?

The government should not discriminate between students. What they should do is ‘sponsor’ every student to $X amount of money, whether they are public or private schooled. If someone chooses to subsidise this with their own money (i.e. enroll their children in a private school), that’s their decision. Some will, some won’t. But every student should be equal!

I see private schools like private health insurance. There is a decent service for everyone out there already, funded by the govt. It people feel that is not sufficient, they can ‘opt out’ and pay for another service.

However, neither of these should be funded by govt. It’s a moot point that a lot of people are now sending their kids to low fee private schools – that has only come about because (understandably) people ‘followed the money’ when Johnny Howard was chucking it at them by the barrow load for 12 years.

However, subsidising the services of private corporations (churches, private health insurers), when a perfectly good public service exists out there is not good governance. And, of course, people are, generally, aspirational snobs and like to think that their ‘choice’ is somehow an essential service.

Talk about the obscene resources of CG, CCEGS, and Radford may be a convenient distraction. Consider who are likely to be the overwhelming beneficiaries of the Canberra Liberals’ generosity with public money and whether the Liberals’ leadership group should perhaps be more open in declaring their interests.

Please note: I have educated my children in both systems – one spent primary school in the public system, high school in the private system and the other had been educated all the way through in the private system.

Okay, for people who do not understand what the Catholic system and private systems provide for the general public and taxpayers;

1. By having the options of private schools and education, the government and taxpayers benefit greatly in each state. Why is that, people/taxpayers ask? The reasons being that the government does not need to keep open so many public schools (do you all recall the many closures of government schools in Canberra a few years ago? One of the reasons were ‘numbers’. Many people (non-Christians) included send their children to be privately educated, in particular, by the Catholic and Anglican systems.

2. The fact that ‘independent’ or private education exists in each state,prior to the Government closing down many A.C.T. schools, this fact, had lowered the classroom pupil numbers in government schools; do not blame the private school system for the government capitalising on the fact that the private education systems have taken in many of the A.C.T.’s children from non-Christian families.In previous years gone by, the private system has done great favours for A.C.T. public school educated kids when the average classroom primary school numbers were around 24 kids maximum per classroom x 2 as opposed to the 31+ per classroom numbers x 4 classes per year. Double the number of students that private systems have educated which include children from non-Christian families.

3. Families pay a couple of thousand per term for one or two children educated in the private system, the small amount received from the government (which the Catholic and Anglican systems over many many years have taken the load off Government ie ‘Taxpayers’ taking children without bias or judgement or unfairness) goes a little way towards the maintenance and installation costs such as fittings for children who are disabled and so forth. The majority of income is generated from the many large fetes (Holy Family) being one example and Trivia nights that each school holds regularly.

Just a litttle query for you Darkfaz? how many grand private school Fetes have you attended or taken your children to in the past?

I have a lot of sympathy for the Catholic schools (and for that matter the Islamic school in weston) that truly do try to make themselves accessible to all in the community who want to attend. Aside from the fees being relatively affordable ($5-$6000 year or thereabouts), it’s fairly common knowledge that if there is a family that wants to send their children to the school but is utterly unable to find the money such schools are usually willing to make alternative arrangements(including waving part or all of the fees) to ensure the child can attend.
These sort of independent schools are simply servicing their respective segment of the community and really ought to, IMO, get a similar level of funding per student to government schools.

Canberra Grammar, Radford, ect on the other hand are an entirely different kettle of fish. Token scholarships aside, these sorts of schools are by their very nature exclusionary, and frankly the emergence of a two tier education system makes an absolute mockery of any notion of equality of opportunity in this country.
It’s also bit of a joke to be charging 10-20k a year per student while still receiving some funding from the government (average for non government schools is about 6.5k/year per student from memory) then crying poor.

Pretty sure that Australia is one of the only countries in the OECD that gives any government funding at all to privates schools.